[Roundtable] Theodor Beutel: Designing the Function of Currency - The Emerging Field of Cryptoeconomics

April 02, 2019

Cryptoeconomic incentive mechanismscreate a novel solution space that goes beyond what currencies were traditionally been designed and used for. We will kick off the discussion with a brief introduction to cryptoeconomics as a "science that focuses on the design and characterization" of "protocols that govern the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services in a decentralized digital economy" (Zamfir, 2015). Key to our discussion will be the role of quantitative incentive mechanisms. Touching on Campbell's law stating that "the more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor", this roundtable aims to discuss how cryptoeconomic principles may facilitate social structures that are sustainable and, finally, give an outlook on the notion of post-incentive design.